Zambian villagers turn to eating elephants that ate crops in fallout from translocation project

Zambian farmers Wanjole Phiri, 60, and his wife Bupe Phiri, 59. They built this house in the Lumezi District of Zambia with their own hands in 2010 but abandoned it in April this year out of fear of elephant attack. (Ed Stoddard, on 27 June. (Photo: Ed Stoddard)

By Ed Stoddard

21 Apr 2025

A conservation project has become a nightmare. Locals near an unfenced park are burying loved ones, butchering elephants – and preparing to sue.

Warning: Sensitive readers may find some of the photographs below disturbing.

At least three elephants from Malawi’s Kasungu National Park were shot dead at the end of March and early in April on the Zambian side of the reserve, and impoverished farmers have started butchering the pachyderms for food – a jarring case of people eating the very animals that have been eating their crops.

This is according to Warm Heart, an NGO formed in response to the often lethal conflict raging along Kasungu’s boundaries since an ill-conceived translocation of 263 elephants to the largely unfenced park in 2022 that was spearheaded by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).

Warm Heart has a network of volunteers and informants in Zambia and Malawi in the communities bordering the park, and they have been painstakingly compiling information about the damage that farmers have suffered since the translocation.

The NGO has also recorded several elephant deaths, but this is the first time that there have been reports – with photographic evidence – of a slain elephant being butchered for food. There have also been reports of dead elephants on the Malawian side being butchered.

elephants Kasungu Malawi An elephant reportedly shot by rangers on 31 March 2025 being butchered for food in Zambia near the boundary with Malawi’s Kasungu National Park. (Photo: Warm Heart)

This image will be shocking to many, but for the rural poor in the region who have been terrorised for almost three years it represents one less elephant to contend with and a welcome source of food.

The elephant being skinned for food was reportedly shot by Zambian rangers on 31 March. “It was charging them when they were trying to chase it away from a village,” Christabel Chikwikwi, a Warm Heart volunteer who compiled witness testimony, told Daily Maverick.

Two elephant experts consulted by Daily Maverick said the animal appeared to be about 15 years old and was most likely a cow.

Another two elephants were reportedly killed by poachers on the Zambian side of the park on 2 and 3 April.

Zambian wildlife officials did not respond to Daily Maverick queries, and a senior official with Malawi’s parks said he was unaware of the incidents. Ifaw responded to Daily Maverick’s request for comment by saying queries should be directed to the Malawi Parks department.

The Zambian side of Kasungu National Park in the Lundazi District of Zambia. There is cultivation right up to the edge of the park which is marked by a treelike. Pointedly, there is no fence, allowing elephants and hyenas to come and go and terrorise villagers, on 27 June 2024. (Photo: Ed Stoddard)

Elephants at Lifupa Dam in Kasungu National Park. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Daily Maverick was on the ground in the region in 2024 and our observations corroborated Warm Heart’s assertions, which have laid the groundwork for a looming group action suit in the UK against Ifaw. The suit is led by Leigh Day, a law firm that focuses on human rights.

It seeks compensation for people whose loved ones have been killed by the elephants and those who have suffered crop and property damage. The lawsuit is also aimed at obliging Ifaw to take remedial action such as building a fence to contain the elephants.

Kasungu lies completely in Malawi but the park’s western side borders Zambia and it has no fence. The border is marked by a treeline running along fields cleared for subsistence farming on the Zambian side – making those fields a tempting source of food and water for hungry and thirsty elephants.

Much of the park’s boundary on the Malawian side also lacks proper fencing.

Ifaw has denied any wrongdoing.

“Before, during and after the translocation, Ifaw has worked alongside its partners, including the relevant authorities, in support of the two governments to undertake a proactive approach to human-wildlife conflict, which continues to date,” Ifaw said when Daily Maverick first reported news of the looming group action suit.

“The work to which Ifaw provides financial and technical support includes community sensitisation and engagement, physical- and virtual-fencing monitoring and capacity building for rapid response teams consisting of volunteers living in the area.”

Despite such measures – if they are indeed being implemented, which Daily Maverick cannot verify – human-wildlife conflict in the region is clearly spiralling out of control. Warm Heart receives reports almost daily of incursions and conflict, and the toll among people and pachyderms is rising.

Grace Phiri, a Zambian farmer, separates ground nuts from their vines. She would typically do this in the field but out of fear of elephant attack has transported the harvest by ox-cart to her yard, a much more costly process, on 27 June 2024. (Photo: Ed Stoddard)

Zambian farmers Wanjole Phiri (60) and his wife Bupe (59). They built this house in the Lumezi District of Zambia with their own hands in 2010 but abandoned it in April this year out of fear of elephant attack. (Photo: Ed Stoddard)

At least 10 people have been killed by elephants in Zambia and Malawi since the translocation and at least two others have been killed by a hippo and hyenas in incidents that possibly stemmed from the project. More than 50 children have been orphaned as a result.

Millions of dollars in crop and property damage are also estimated to have been inflicted on mostly subsistence farmers who were also hit hard last year by a drought triggered by El Niño.

The elephant death toll is not known but Warm Heart estimates that dozens of elephants have been shot or poisoned or have died from stress, hunger and thirst.

And now rural people in the region are eating the source of their terror – a state of affairs that was clearly not part of Ifaw’s vision for the project.

For Ifaw, the debacle has been a public relations nightmare. After Daily Maverick, the Financial Times and other media reported on the issue in 2024, Ifaw clammed up and said it would not be entertaining any media queries on the matter – a highly unusual policy for an NGO that relies on donor funding and is not known for being media-shy.

Ifaw, which in its last financial year saw its revenue fall by about 20%, according to its published financial reports, pointedly no longer refers to the recent reports of conflict around Kasungu on its website.

The NGO proclaimed on the main page of its website recently that Giving Day for Elephants was 15 April.

“The funds raised on Giving Day for Elephants will go toward projects that are critical to the survival of these gentle giants – safeguarding them from poachers, rescuing and caring for orphaned calves, and creating safe landscapes for elephants to roam.

“By preserving a network of protected lands, we can protect elephants and all the other animals who share their habitats,” Ifaw says.

“When you join us, you’ll help support Ifaw’s efforts to heal and reconnect crucial wild areas, prevent conflict between people and wildlife, and preserve the biodiversity.”

Dispatched down the memory hole in this appeal is the inconvenient fact that the Kasungu translocation in which Ifaw played a major role has uncorked a tsunami of conflict between people and elephants – elephants that are now sadly on the local menu. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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